So I hear misinformation about contact lenses all of the time, not just online
but also directly from patients in the eye clinic. So today we're gonna break down
seven contact lens myths that you need to know are not actually true. Let's take a look.
Hey what's up Dr. Joseph Allen here from the Dr eye health show and on this channel
we talk a lot about eyes contact lenses vision diseases everything in between so if you like
learning about the eyes and seeing your best hit the subscribe button so you don't miss any of our
future videos. Now the absolute number one myth about contact lenses i hear most often is that
the contact lenses are gonna get stuck behind your eye. this is not true at all and that's
just a misinformation about how the anatomy of the eyeball works there's actually a clear coating on
the surface of your eye called the conjunctiva and that actually loops around underneath your eyelid
and attaches to the back surface of your eyelids so no even if a contact lens does fold on itself
and gets stuck way up there it's not going to roll behind the eye and get to your brain or
anything like that if a contact lens does slip underneath your eyelid and get stuck back there
it's best to just look down toward the floor and try to like touch it feel it and push it downward
i do have a video going more in depth on how to get these things out safely of course at all times
if you just can't seem to get things out and you're you can feel it up there make sure you
talk to a local eye doctor because we can put special chemicals in the eye to see where it is
and we can get out there for you but i do totally understand that fear but no they can't get behind
the eye the second contact lens myth is that if you have astigmatism you can't wear contacts
and i'm not really sure who is out there telling patients that they can't wear contacts because
they have astigmatism because it's just not true anymore maybe like 30 years ago or more
uh they didn't have contacts for stigmatism but now we do i even have a video going over
like the best contact lenses for astigmatism even if you have a high amount of astigmatism we even
have custom-made soft lenses like the biofinity xr torics or if you have a severe amount of
astigmatism like somebody with keratoconus then you can get custom scleral lenses made for your
prescription and you probably even see better in those than you would with glasses yes it's a
little bit true your doctor may feel that you're just not a good candidate for contact lenses due
to your astigmatism but it doesn't mean that it's not possible so keep that in mind now contact lens
myth number three is that children cannot wear contact lenses again complete myth children can
wear contact lenses i've even fit contact lenses in kids as young as age of six years old and i
know other practitioners who fit them in even younger we even can fit contact lenses for baby
infants who usually have had some either a birth defect or they've had surgery to remove maybe
a cataract inside the eye and then we need to fit contact lenses that the parents can help
put in and take out because that helps better with neurological development of the visual
processing centers cool enough the us fda did approve the my site contact lens for starting at
the age of eight years old so yes kids can start wearing contact lenses a rough rule of thumb that
a lot of eye doctors kick around is that we like to make sure that kids are mature enough to keep
their bedrooms clean if they're a young kid who's not mature enough to keep their bedroom clean then
they're probably not mature enough to keep their contact lenses clean so again just a
rough rule of thumb contact lens myth number four is that yes you can sleep in contact lenses now uh
unfortunately this is kind of a tough question to answer because it's like a little bit yes or no
there are technically contact lenses that are fda approved for overnight or extended wear however
even for people who do choose to wear those specific lenses and sleep in those lenses
they're at a much higher risk of developing a coronal infection or ulcer and that's just true
fact for basically every eye doctor out there they're going to see more infections for people
who sleep in their lenses and over wear their lenses there are select cases such as after trauma
or surgery that will prescribe a bandage contact lens to be put on the patient's eye for several
days that they'll go ahead and sleep in because those are special cases where we're going to
follow up with them several days later as well as usually prescribing antibiotic on top of that just
as a prophylactic treatment to prevent them from getting an infection and there are special lenses
like ortho k lenses which have a really high breathability so oxygen can still pass through
those lenses so those lenses are specifically made for people to sleep in but in general we still see
much higher infection and ulcer rates and even people losing vision permanently because they
slept in their contacts myth number five is that if you run out of contact lens solution it's okay
to use either tap water or saliva this is actually a weird question that i got when i presented at a
local high school for their health care fair and a student in high school raised their hand and asked
me this exact question as far as the tap water goes i understand that because when i was a kid
i would maybe forget to pack my contact lens solution when i went to go spend the night
at a friend's house and i would just use tap water and that was honestly one of the biggest
mistakes you can possibly make with soft contact lenses i actually think i'm super lucky that i did
end up with like a permanent disability because i would do this all forms of water especially tap
water even though if it's cleaned there's still microorganisms that live in that water and can
cause really awful infections with contact lenses specifically there's one called acanth amoeba
which is not only potentially blinding causing massive scarring
but it is extremely painful so please do not do what i did when i was in junior high and
you know replace it with tap water do not do that make sure you are using an approved disinfectant
of some kind and then as far as saliva goes i'm not sure where that comes from but maybe from that
one basketball player that once his contact lens fell out and he put it in his mouth and then put
it back into his eye again your saliva is a form of water massive amounts of bacteria in your mouth
uh and still just not a good idea if your contact lens falls out that's why it's good to always have
a little travel bottle of disinfectant solution so you can just re-wet it and then put it back
in in fact that's one of the things i recommend for all of my young teenage patients who are
wearing contact lenses for sports and things like that make sure just to have a little travel size
bottle with you in your like activity bag myth number six is that it's okay to swim
in your contact lenses ugh this is a tough one because again myself growing up i would wear my
contact lenses while i went swimming not because it's okay but because i didn't know about it
unfortunately again all forms of water whether it be swimming pool water if you're in a lake
water if you're in a bathtub or taking a shower or even if it's like bottled water or something
like that all forms of water have high amounts of microorganisms and dramatically increases
your risk for contact lens related infections and if you happen to be a swimmer guess what they do
in fact make prescription eye goggles they even make prescription eye goggles in like transitions
lenses that'll turn into more like sunglasses when you're outside it's pretty crazy but again sorry
swimming in contact lenses is again a huge risk for infection and contact lens myth number seven
is that as you get older you can't wear contact lenses and i understand why people sometimes think
this they think because hey i'm starting to have trouble seeing up close with presbyopia and maybe
they're prescribed bifocals or progressive lenses and they think i just i can't wear contact lenses
anymore they get too frustrated well they do have now multi-focal contact lenses and they even make
multifocals for astigmatism so yes we do have contact lenses that work by allowing you to see
both far away and help you see things up close so you're less dependent on things like reading
glasses and all of that and now we even have like the Vuity eye drops that help constrict your pupil
and help you see up close so yeah whether with multifocal contacts or a combination
of maybe a distance contact lens a near contact lens uh or multifocals there's so many different
options and yes you can wear contacts even in your older age hey thank you for watching if
this video helped you out in any way hit that like button for us and leave us a comment any questions
about contact lenses or really anything about the eyes i'd love to hear back from you otherwise if
you want to see other cool videos about eye health tips keeping the eyes healthy seeing
your best with glasses go ahead and click or tap the screen over here to the side otherwise again
this is Dr Allen here from the doctor eye health show keep an eye on it and we'll talk to you soon